


Black Sheep

by Eissel



Series: Whumptober 2019 [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Arthur is trying his best but it doesn't work, Fabian & Gideon are... trying their best too let's say, First War with Voldemort, Gen, God Percy was starved of emotional support and it SHOWS, Hurt No Comfort, I love this utter disaster child, My dudes I’d kill for Percy and that’s final, No 7 - Isolation, Whumptober, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-27 03:56:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20941892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eissel/pseuds/Eissel
Summary: Percy Weasley understood his place in the family intimately.That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt sometimes.





	Black Sheep

**Author's Note:**

> Will I ever tire of hurting Percy? No. The answer is no.

Percy is barely more than a child when the War ends. He hears the adults talk about it in hushed voices, he hears Bill chatter to Charlie about finally getting to see their friends again. 

Percy hopes that his uncles will finally come home and stop making Mum sad. He can hear her crying in the nights, sometimes to herself, sometimes to Da when he finally comes home. Percy never lets on that he hears, he’s gotten very good at becoming hidden. 

He’s gotten very good at getting out of the way, after all, children needed to be protected. 

_ He dreams of fire and bright lights, he falls asleep with ear splitting sirens as his lullabies. He is so so _ ** _ quiet_ ** _ . _

_ ⸻⸻⸻ _

When the war ends, Da comes home, but his uncles never do. 

Percy meets his father face to face for the first time 3 days after his mother cries on another lady shouting that “_ Arthur can come home! _ ” He meets him not in the safe-house, but in a shabby, barely put together _ thing _ that he learns is called the Burrow. 

He hates it, and he hates him.

_ At least at first. Barely a year later he comes to love _ ** _ him_**_,__ but he will forever hate the house that his siblings love. _

“Hello there Percy.” His father’s voice is soft and quiet. 

“Hello.” He says shyly. 

“Would you like me to read to you?” 

“No.” That is a task reserved for Uncle Fabian and Uncle Gideon. This person may be his father, but reading is for ** _them_**. His father draws away and glances at his mother with an expression Percy will learn is called _ helplessness. _

Percy stares at Arthur for all of a minute more before walking (not running, _ never _running) to his little cubby hole and playing with his battered toys. 

_ He never sees the stricken expression on Arthur’s face when he hears Percy play and squeal the words of the Unforgivable almost perfectly._

_ ⸻⸻⸻ _

A year before the war ended (Percy sometimes wonders if it ever did because his uncles never came home and Mum always looks so sad now), Mum ballooned out. Bill and Charlie laugh and grin, tell him that Mum looked like that when he was born. 

He touches her expanded belly reverentially, and looks up to her. He feels the warmth beneath his hand, and is pleased when he feels the kick. He can tell that the babies will be good at staying quiet, will be good at hiding from the lights and screams. Then he gives her belly a pat and wanders away, back to his books and little hide away in the backroom which he covers with blankets. 

He can hear the whispers behind him, though he doesn’t know what they mean:

“Arthur, Percy’s such a strange child…He’s always so quiet. Bill and Charlie weren’t like this when he was born.” 

_ Percy interprets ‘strange’ as ‘good’ until it isn’t anymore. _

_⸻⸻⸻_

Right before the twins are born, Percy refuses to hold them. 

“They’ll get sick, and we don’t have the money to treat them. Plus it’ll be hard to get medicine with all the fighting and other people need it more” He reasons, and doesn’t interpret the _ look _on his parents’ faces as shock and horror. Instead, he smiles and thanks his mother and runs off to read a book. Bill and Charlie stare after him, and he can feel their gazes on his back. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with them, only that they’re being silly for not realizing what was going on outside.

When he gets to his little room (it’s not a room, it’s a blanket in a spare bit of space, but it is his), he stays stays silent even as his mother screams her pain out to the world. He knows better than to scream and cry. 

_ His uncles would be so proud. _

When his mother brings the bundles around to show everyone, Percy stays away. The babies are loud and he dislikes them intensely. They should know that they needed to be _ quiet _because otherwise they could be caught. 

He hopes his uncles come home soon so that they can tell the babies that, because it seemed like no one would do it for them.

_ ⸻⸻⸻ _

When Percy is 11, he doesn’t see the point in going to Hogwarts, but he knows better than to vocalize it. Instead, he wheedles his books out of Bill and Charlie, arguing that Da doesn’t bring home enough money to justify spending it on Percy’s school supplies. 

He only accepts the wand because Da says it’s a late birthday present. He says nothing about how he would’ve preferred a book instead and takes it with a false smile. 

He’d gotten good at those too when they were in hiding. Uncle Fabian had sternly told him to stay happy, because the _ dementors _ would have a harder time getting him. Mum had screamed at him when she found out, but once he had looked up what the _ dementors _were, Percy had thought it was an excellent piece of advice. 

_ Sometimes he wonders if his uncles never came back because they failed to follow their own advice. _

_ Sometimes he wonders if he hadn’t been happy enough. _

_ That’s the question that haunts him. If he’d been happier, would his uncles have come home? _

The night before Hogwarts, Da walks into his room and sits on his bed. 

“Would you like for me to read to you?” He asks quietly. Percy stares at him blankly through bleary eyes. 

“What’s the occasion?” He asks, bland as possible, because this is a break in routine, and breaks in routine always led to something bad. 

_ He sees it hit Uncle Gideon, that green light. _

_ It hits him at 3:32 **precisely** and he knows that because that’s the time Uncle Gideon always came to read to him on his designated days._

_ When Uncle Gideon doesn’t rouse himself, when the man on top of him doesn’t move, when the footsteps fade away, Percy walks forwards, and shakes him. _

_ It’s 3:40, Uncle Gideon is late, which is a break in routine. _

_ It’s 3:50, and maybe Uncle Gideon shouldn't have stayed up so late._

_ It’s 4:00 and his mother enters the room with a shrill scream. Percy is still diligently shaking Uncle Gideon. _

_ It's another break in routine when Uncle Fabian reads to him that day (it was a Wednesday, an **Uncle Gideon** day, which is why Percy remembers it so clearly), voice shaky and thick, face wet with tears._

_ The next day at 6:47, Uncle Fabian rushes in, scoops him up, and places him in the cupboard. _

_ “Merlin’s beard Percy you’re so thin…” He whispers. “Just stay here, your mum will come get you I promise, but you have to keep quiet, okay little man?” Percy nods. He’ll be a good boy for his uncle and then Uncle Gideon would have to get better! Fabian hugs him tight. “Good.” He hesitates before closing the door. “I love you. He loved you too. We both love you very much.” He nods absentmindedly, and locks the door. _

_ Percy measures the footsteps he takes. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. There’s a flash of red light, and he hears screams. _

_ Percy stays quiet. The screaming continues. _

_ “Where’s the brat?” _

_ “I-I won’t ever tell you!” Uncle Fabian was so brave… The screams continued, until a green light flashed and they stopped. Percy engraved the words that accompanied the green light into his memory. _

_ Quiet spells were very useful. _

_ When his mother got him, it’s 7:23. She scolds him. _

_ “Why didn’t you scream, or shout? You could’ve died in there! What was he thinking?!” he doesn’t know the words to correct her, so he stays quiet. He spies Uncle Fabian on a table, and waves. _

_ Uncle Fabian doesn’t wave back. _

_ That’s okay. He did a lot of work last night keeping Percy safe. He doesn’t see Uncle Gideon anywhere, which means he’s probably in the hospital. Percy hopes he gets better soon. _

_ This break in routine is okay. _

_ Until it’s not. _

“None in particular.” His father’s laugh is forced. “I just wanted to spend some time with you before you head out. By the time we can actually spend our time together again, you’ll practically be a man!”

“11 isn’t old enough to be a man.” He says primly. 

_ 11 isn’t old enough… But 8 is. _

_ 8 is the age Uncle Fabian tells him that he’s a man of the house now, that he has to protect the sleeping twins while he and Uncle Gideon go out. _

His father laughs uncomfortably. 

“That’s not quite what I meant Percy…” Percy regards him with a cool air. 

“I don’t want you to read to me.” He says finally, because that task is still one that belongs to his long gone uncles. Percy knows that this practice of his, pushing people away because he wants to hang onto the small shred of hope that one day they’ll come back is unhealthy.

He just doesn’t care. 

“Are you sure?” Da asks again. 

“You haven’t bothered before. Why start now?” He states it as fact, and doesn’t know why his father draws back as if wounded. 

Percy had just told the truth, just like his uncles told him to. 

_⸻⸻⸻_

He meets Oliver Wood the night of the Sorting. The other boy plops down in the seat beside him and shoots him a wide grin. 

“Nice t’ meet you!” His accent is thick, but his brown eyes are as clear as a summer sky. 

Percy smiles back shyly. 

“It’s nice to meet you too.” When they walk upstairs, they find four beds. 

Percy clambers into the one furthest from the door, and Oliver takes the one closest to it. In the night, when neither boy can sleep, Oliver asks for a story. 

Percy obliges. He doesn’t ask why Oliver wants a story, and Oliver doesn’t ask why Percy doesn’t. 

The next morning dawns and the two eleven year olds strip the other two beds of their blankets and fold them. Percy takes his own stolen pile and places it at the foot of his bed. They'll make decent soundproofing for the nights they need to stay silent. Oliver hides his candy stash from the train in his, and shoves it into the closet.

Oliver stares at Percy, awed. Percy looks at Oliver in much the same way. 

_ They never do understand that their actions are strange. This is their normal, their routine. _

_ It doesn’t last. _

_⸻⸻⸻_

When the twins arrive at Hogwarts, Percy starts to feel strange. People were never drawn to him in the first place, but now it seems as though he is more lonely than ever. Even Oliver starts to drift towards them. 

_ He is not stolen in a single breath, no. _

_ Oliver is won from his side so very _ ** _slowly_ ** _ , and that’s what Percy hates about it the most. _

_ If it had been quick, it would’ve made sense, but it was slow so so slow, and that meant that Percy could’ve stopped it if he had just been _ ** _better._ **

Percy Weasley is the outlier of the family. He doesn’t play Quidditch, he holes himself up in the library and reads all day. He has ambition in spades and never seems to actually _ act _like a Weasley should. 

When the twins turn his robes green and silver, he says nothing, and merely spells them back to their normal Gryffindor colors. He’s been dealing with this for years now, and knows better to complain. 

_ He doesn’t miss Oliver laughing behind his hand. _

_⸻⸻⸻_

In his 5th year, Percy Weasley meets Harry Potter. And he hates him. 

He looks at the black haired, green eyed child and wonders how he can be so much more a Weasley than Percy. Red haired, blue eyed Percy. 

At that fateful breakfast, Percy picks up his plate and heads to the sink alone. He hears the chatter through a distant filter, absorbed in his own little world. 

He ignores the feeling of his heart shattering. 

_ ⸻⸻⸻ _

When Percy is 18 he screams at his father, and lets out all the poison an 8 year old unloved little boy kept bottled up for years. He demands answers, demands recognition he’s been denied his whole life.

He begs for sympathy and curses his father’s name.

He screams out his hate, screams out his desperation. 

_ Love me! Look at me! Don’t I mean anything to you?! _

When he’s done, when he finishes spewing out his pathetic pleadings, his father looks at him silently, and points at the door. Percy stares at him, slack jawed. 

_ He hears the whispers and understands this time. “He is no son of mine.” _

Then he screws up his face and marches straight out the door.

He refuses to cry. 

_ That night he falls asleep not to screaming sirens, but to soft sobs. _

_⸻⸻⸻_

The next morning dawns, and Percy Weasley wanders out to the graveyard. He quickly finds the stones he’s looking for, having tread the path many times since he was 10 and finally figured out that his uncles were never coming home. 

_ What really was home anyways? Because for him it was never the Burrow, never the claustrophobic lean-to that his parents constructed. _

_ Home was the cabin hidden away in the woods, home was the pine and lavender he smelled as Uncle Fabian hugged him. Home was the dulcet tones of Uncle Gideon as he read to him. Home was the small hideyhole in the back room where Percy put his toys and books. _

_ Home was so far, and Percy felt so alone. _

“Hey Uncle Fabian, Uncle Gideon.” His eyes are wet with unshed tears, and he crumples. “Sorry I’ve been away for so long.” His voice is thick, and he struggles to get the words out, a first. He wraps stick thin arms around the rocks, and ignores that he’s agitated the bruises that still remain from the twins’ last prank. 

Percy Weasley sits at the grave of the two father figures he never really knew, and cries his heart out, siren cries, green light, lost childhood and all. 

_ ⸻⸻⸻ _

_ The war was over they said. _

_ For Percy Weasley, it never really was. _


End file.
